Suspected gunmen shot dead a staff member after invading a state-run boarding school and abducted dozens of girls from their dormitory during a pre-dawn attack in Nigeria’s northwestern state of Kebbi on Monday, the police said.

The gunmen, wielding sophisticated weapons and suspected to be “bandits,” scaled the fence of the school and “abducted at least 25 students from their hostel to an unknown destination,” local police spokesman Nafiu Abubakar Kotakoshi told a media briefing.

Noting that more girls might be missing, Kotakoshi said another school staff member was injured in the attack.

The incident occurred at the Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, a community in the Wasagu/Danko Local Government Area of Kebbi, early Monday, he said.

Government forces are searching for the kidnapped schoolgirls, combing known routes of bandits and nearby forests, Kotakoshi said. 

REPORT BY: XINHUA